The blacksmith turned on him a look like that of a wounded bear. 'An' ye sit thar ez peaceful ez skim-milk, an' 'low ez ye hev let my two hundred dollars slip away?' he demanded. 'Dad burn yer greasy soul!'
'I hopes it air all I hev let slip,' said the sheriff quietly. There was so much besides which he had cause to fear that it did not occur to him to be afraid of the blacksmith.
Perhaps it was the subacute perception that he shared the officer's attention with more engrossing subjects which had the effect of tempering Gid Fletcher's anger.
The rim of the moon was slipping behind the purple heights of Chilhowee. Day was suddenly upon them, though the sun had not yet risen—when did the darkness flee?—the day, cool, with a freshness as of a new creation, and with an atmosphere so clear that one might know the ash from the oak in the deep green depths of the wooded valley.
The hour had not yet done with witchery: the rose-red cloud was in the east, and the wild red rose had burst its bud; a mocking-bird sprang from its nest in a dogwood-tree, with a scintillating wing and a soaring song, and a ray of sunlight like a magic wand fell athwart the landscape.
Gid Fletcher sat vaguely staring. Presently he lifted his hand with a sudden gesture demanding attention.
'Ye ain't goin' ter be 'lected, air ye, 'Cajah Green?'
The sheriff stirred uneasily. His ambition, a little and a selfish thing, was the index to his soul. Without it he himself would not be able to find the page whereon was writ all that there was of the spiritual within him. He writhed to forego it.
'Naw,' he said desperately. 'I s'pose I ain't.' He pushed his hat back nervously.
He heard, without marking, the sudden rattling of one of the waggons that had left some time ago: it was crossing a rickety bridge near the foot of the mountain; the hollow reverberations rose and fell, echoed and died away. One of the cabin doors opened, and a man came out upon the porch. He washed his face in a tin pan which stood on a bench for the public toilet, treated his head to a refreshing souse, and then, with the water dripping from his long locks upon the shoulders of his shirt, the bold-faced deputy, much refreshed by a snack and his ablutions, came lounging across the clearing to join them.